A skew-wiff look at TV, Books and Film

Detective

A lone Spitfire soars over London, landing gracefully in front of Buckingham Palace. But the Palace is a bombed-out shell, and the swastika hangs from its gates. Its 1941. The Battle of Britain has been fought – and lost.

Though there may be Nazi jack boots marching down the Mall, life goes on. And Detective Archer has a murderer to find.

Focussing on the ordinary characters caught up in a mad, complex situation is a nifty way of bringing us into what is a pretty surreal setting. Archer is a believably capable detective, but no superhuman. He has a vague grasp of how things are playing out, at least enough to stay alive, but the bigger game is always beyond him. It keeps things personal, the losses and choices have a real weight to them. Big ideas like patriotism and duty seem remote compared Archer and Harry’s friendship and loyalty.

This does have the effect of making Sylvia a rather unappealing figure. Her black and white view of things comes across as rather juvenile, even petulant. Her willingness to put herself repeatedly in danger felt to me more a lack of pragmatism than bravery. Not that she seemed stupid, just rather unconcerned with realities. When she and Harry were put into the holding camps, it was him who found food for her. Barbara is more interesting, gallivanting about the world looking for a story. But her distance makes her chilly and difficult to trust. What’s she up to?

Perhaps this is more to do with person taste than I realise. Fervour is the stuff of heroes, after all. Sylvia was at least genuine, and consistent – deriding the collaborators for selling out their neighbours for ‘a more comfortable life’. Did she think more of the Nazis than the collaborators? They at least fought for a cause. Her hero’s death seemed fitting; she would become a beacon, a rallying point for British resistance. Some viewers may have been affected by her sacrifice. Though I couldn’t help but feel that her final gesture was just that – a gesture. Like throwing a lit cigarette into the crate of yellow stars that Jewish locals would be forced to wear – it was defiant and heartfelt, but didn’t really accomplish much.

Eternity belongs to heroes, but the world belongs to swindlers. Mayhew’s double-cross was brilliant in design (and ruthless in execution). I did wonder if the King knew he was never going to make that plane… Austere Huth came a cropper too. His focus was his weakness, not his strength. It was adaptable, genial Kellerman who came out ahead. For now at least.

The pragmatic tone carries through to the ending- optimistic, but hardly celebratory, with no great patriotic fanfare. It’s not as though Britain won by noble means, let’s be honest. In fact, they’ve hardly won at all. The future looks rosy (or at least less grim than it did), but Britain remains very much occupied. Still, I liked the sense of moving forward, resolute and just a bit crafty. Britain won’t win because they’re better, or more noble. They’ll win because they’re wily and stubborn.

And because they adapt. SS-GB was written in 1978, when Britain was well and truly on its arse, still struggling with the exhausting effort of WW2 and a rapidly diminished place in the world. Survival comes from facing realities, and putting your efforts into building for the future. Early in the series, the Nazis and Soviets made a big show of exhuming the remains of Karl Marx to be dispatched back to Russia with great pomp and ceremony. Their ‘friendship’ is based on the past. By bringing about the destruction of Nazi efforts to build the A bomb and offering key research in this to the US, Britain is forging a new friendship and a new future.

Still, this isn’t a story about big events, and the small scale is echoed visually, with few big set pieces. The opening scene was nicely done and the final fight at the aerodrome was thrilling, but the important stuff goes on in the sitting room, at a game of cards, down the pub. Politics and warfare isn’t just armies and ministers, it’s out on the street, how you treat your neighbour. Would you inform on someone for a bag of potatoes? For the life of your son?

Early on, Archer talks about keeping his head down and maintaining law and order because the Germans won’t be around for ever. But I didn’t really buy that – he (quite sensibly) just doesn’t want to get involved. But the real cruelty of the Reich isn’t the wrong flag above Westminster; it’s a headmaster carted off to the camps for no reason, prostitutes rounded up and abused in the street, men shot for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thoug, if evil is small scale, so is bravery. Sylvia and her plucky companions are principled enough, but they won’t win the war. America looms large, but it won’t get involved for no reason. Somewhere between the two, sits the ordinary people. Only when they care enough to make those small acts of defiance – when Archer starts to make those little moves – can the much bigger pieces fall into place. Starting from such a striking premise, it’s an oddly predictable resolution. But it makes for a great story.

What did you think? I haven’t seen The Man in the High Castle, how does it compare? Did you find yourself warming to Huth in his final scene? Did you just want to give Harry a hug the whole way through? Let me know!